Six New Books Tackle Love, Church-State, Islamic Law

02/18/08

Scholars in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR) at Emory University have released six new volumes on topics ranging from love in African America to the role of mainline churches in policy-making to the future of Islamic law.

Love and Marriage in Early African America(Northeastern University Press, 2008) by Frances Smith Foster brings together folk sayings, rhymes, songs, poems, letters, lectures, sermons, short stories, memoirs, and autobiographies spanning from the slave era to the New Negro Movement. The collection contradicts established notions that slavery fractured families, devalued sexual morality, distorted gender roles, and set in motion forces that now produce dismal and dangerous domestic situations. Foster is Charles Howard Candler Professor of English, Chair of Emory's English Department, and a CSLR senior fellow.

Public Pulpits: Methodists and Mainline Churches in the Moral Argument of Public Life (University of Chicago Press, 2008) by Steven M. Tipton examines the political activities of Methodists and mainline churches in this groundbreaking investigation into a generation of denominational strife among church officials, lobbyists, and activists. Documenting a wide range of reactions to two radically different events—the invasion of Iraq and the creation of the faith-based initiatives program—Tipton charts the new terrain of religious and moral argument under the Bush administration. Tipton is professor of sociology of religion, director of Emory's Graduate Division of Religion, and a CSLR senior fellow.